Aesthetic value, often viewed as subjective and even trivial compared to other environmental values, is commonly given low priority in policy debates. In this paper I argue that the seriousness and importance of aesthetic value cannot be denied when we recognise the ways that aesthetic experience is already embedded in a range of human practices. The first area of human practice considered involves the complex relationship between aesthetic experience and the development of an ethical attitude towards the environment. I then discuss how aesthetics has played a role in scientific study and the use of evaluative aesthetic concepts in science, such as variety and diversity. The final section shows the connection between the beneficial effects of aesthetic engagement with nature and the restorative value of nature for human well-being.
AppletonJ.1975. The Experience of Landscape. New York: Wiley.
2.
BradyE.2003. Aesthetics of the Natural Environment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
3.
BrookI.2003. ‘Making Here Like There: Place Attachment, Displacement and the Urge to Garden’, Ethics, Place and Environment, 6(3): 227–34.
4.
BurkeE. [1757] 1958. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, ed. BoultonJ.T.. London: Basil Blackwell.
5.
CarlsonA.2000. Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture. New York and London: Routledge.
6.
ChapmanM.2005. ‘Anthropomorphism in Nature Conservation: New Thoughts from Animal Geographies’, paper presented to 4th International Conference of Critical Geography, Mexico City, January 2005.
7.
ChewM.2005. ‘The (Anti-?) Aesthetics of Invasion Biology’, paper presented to International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology conference, Guelph, Ontario.
8.
CooperD.2006. A Philosophy of Gardens. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
9.
DeweyJ. [1934] 1980. Art as Experience. New York: Perigee.
10.
DuttonD.2003. ‘Evolutionary Aesthetics’. In LevinsonJ. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics.New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
11.
EatonM.2001. Merit, Aesthetic and Ethical.Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
12.
EcoU.1986. Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
13.
ElliotR.1997. Faking Nature. New York: Routledge.
14.
EvansP. ‘Winds of Change’. The Guardian, 26 January 2005.
HepburnR.W.1984. Wonder and Other Essays.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
17.
HepburnR.W.2005. Personal communication.
18.
HumeD. [1757] 1985. ‘Of the Standard of Taste’. Essays Moral, and Political, and Literary, ed. MillerE.. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics.
19.
KantI. [1790] 2001. Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. GuyerP., trans. GuyerP. and MatthewsE.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
20.
KarrJ. and ChuE.1995. ‘Ecological Integrity: Reclaiming Lost Connections’. In WestraL. and LemonsJ. (eds), Perspectives on Ecological Integrity.Dordrecht: Kluwer.
21.
KellertS.1993. ‘The Biological Basis for Human Values of Nature’. In KellertS. and WilsonE.O. (eds), The Biophilia Hypothesis. Washington, D.C./Covelo, CA: Island Press/Shearwater Books.
22.
KoestlerA.1964. The Act of Creation. London: Hutchinson.
23.
LawsonTRawlesK. and GrittenR.1998. ‘Alien Invasion’, BBC Wildlife Magazine, 16(9): 38–40.
24.
LeopoldA. [1949] 2000. ‘The Land Ethic’, A Sand County Almanac, with Essays on Conservation.New York: Oxford.
25.
LevinsonJ.1990. Music, Art and Metaphysics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
26.
LightA.2000. ‘Restoration or Domination?’ In ThroopW. (ed.), Environmental Restoration: Ethics, Theory, and Practice.Amherst: Humanity Books.
27.
LightA.2003. ‘Elegy for a Garden’, Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built and Natural Environment, 13. http://www.terrain.org. Accessed 21/2/06.
28.
MabeyR.2005. Nature Cure. London: Chatto and Windus.
29.
McAllisterJ.1996. Beauty and Revolution in Science. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
30.
McMahonJ.A.2001. ‘Beauty’. In GautB. and McIver LopesD. (eds), Routledge Companion to Aesthetics. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 227–38.
31.
OttossonJ. and GrahnP.2005. ‘A Comparison of Leisure Time Spent in a Garden with Leisure Time Spent Indoors: On Measures of Restoration in Residents in Geriatric Care’, Landscape Research, 30(1): 23–55.
32.
ParrH. Forthcoming 2006. ‘Mental Health, Nature Work and Social Inclusion’. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space.
33.
PlotnitskyA.1998. ‘Science and Aesthetics’. In KellyM. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, vol. 4.New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 250–52.
34.
PorteousJ.D.1996. Environmental Aesthetics: Ideas, Politics, Planning.New York and London: Routledge.
35.
RolstonH.III1986. ‘Beauty and the Beast: Aesthetic Experience of Wildlife’. In DeckerD. and GoffG. (eds), Economic and Social Values of Wildlife. Boulder: Westview Press.
36.
RolstonH.III2002. ‘From Beauty to Duty: Aesthetics of Nature and Environmental Ethics’. In BerleantA. (ed.), Environment and the Arts: Perspectives on Environmental Aesthetics. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, pp. 127–42.
37.
RossS.1998. What Gardens Mean. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
38.
SaitoY.1998. ‘The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 56(2): 101–11.
39.
SchillerF. [1795] 1994. On the Aesthetic Education of Man, trans. R. Snell. Bristol: Thoemmes Press.
40.
SerpellJ.A.2003. ‘Anthropomorphism and Anthropomorphic Selection: Beyond the “Cute Response”’, Society and Animals, 11(1): 83–100.
41.
ThoreauH. D. [1862] 1993. ‘Walking’, reprinted in ArmstrongS.J. and BotzlerR.G. (eds), Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence. New York: McGraw-Hill.
42.
UlrichR.1993. ‘Biophilia, Biophobia, and Natural Landscapes’. In KellertS. and WilsonE.O. (eds), The Biophilia Hypothesis. Washington, D.C./Covelo, CA: Island Press/Shearwater Books.
43.
WilsonE.O.1986. Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
44.
WordsworthW.1896. ‘The Prelude, Book First: Childhood and School Time’. Poetical Works, Volume 3, ed. KnightW.http://www.gutenberg.org. Accessed 22/9/05.
